July 2003
LSE Department of Economics academics elected Fellows of the British Academy
Four LSE academics have been been elected Fellows of the British Academy at its annual general meeting on Thursday 3 July. Two of the academics are Professors at the Department of Economics.
Up to 35 Fellows are elected every year by the British Academy. Election to Fellowship of the British Academy is in recognition of high scholarly distinction in some branch of the humanities or social sciences, as evidenced by published work. The LSE academics elected this year are:
* Professor Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, Cassel Professor of Economics with reference to money and banking, Economics
* Professor Lord (Richard) Layard, Emeritus Professor of Economics and co-director of the Centre for Economic Performance
* Professor Lord (Bhikhu) Parekh, Centennial Professor in the Centre for the Study of Global Governance and emeritus professor of political theory
* Professor Anne Phillips, director of the Gender Institute and professor of gender theory.
For further information, please visit the LSE News and Media pages.
^
LSE and Bank of England connections
Professor King was previously an academic at LSE. He joined the School in 1984, and was a Professor of Economics until 1995.
He was appointed deputy governor of the Bank of England in 1997 and took up his position on 1 June 1998. Before that he was the Bank of England's chief economist and executive director since joining the Bank in March 1991. He was a non-executive director of the Bank from 1990 to 1991. He will take over as governor of the Bank on 1 July on the retirement of Sir Edward George.
At a ceremony later this month, Mervyn King will also be presented as an honorary fellow of LSE, an award recognising those past or present members of the School who have attained distinction in the arts, science or public life. The School currently has around 150 honorary fellows.
In addition, LSE alumna Rachel Lomax takes over from today as deputy governor of the Bank of England. She graduated from LSE in 1968 with an MSc in Economics. Professor Charles Bean, a long serving LSE professor, is currently executive director and chief economist at the Bank, and Professor Stephen Nickell, School Professor of Economics at LSE, has served as a part-time member of the Monetary Policy Committee since June 2000.
Professor Richard Jackman, convenor of the Department of Economics at LSE, said: 'We wish both Mervyn and Rachel well in their new roles. With four LSE-connected people on the Monetary Policy Committee, the School can be seen to have a decisive influence on UK monetary policy.'
For further information, please visit the LSE News and Media pages.
^
June 2003
School Professor of Economics, Nick Stern, to become the new Second Permanent Secretary of H.M. Treasury and Head of the Government Economic Service
Nick Stern, School Professor of Economics at the LSE, will be the new Second Permanent Secretary of H.M. Treasury and Head of the Government Economic Service. Professor Stern is currently on leave as Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist at the World Bank. Professor Stern's appointment is part of a long-tradition of LSE Professors who have gone on to distinguished positions in public life. Apart from Professor Stern, Mervyn King is the new Governor of the Bank of England and Willem Buiter Chief Economist at the EBRD.
Further information on this announcement can be found at the H.M. Treasury' s website.
Other related links are:
H. M. Treasury
Government Economic Service
World Bank
Bank of England
EBRD
^
Special Lecture by Professor Paul Krugman for Economics Alumni
Date: Thursday, 26 June 2003
Time: 6pm
Venue: Old Theatre, Main Building
A reception will follow in the Atrium.
On behalf of the Economics Department, Professor Richard Jackman, Convenor, and Dr Linda Y. Yueh, MSc Tutor, request the pleasure of your company at a special lecture by Professor Paul Krugman for economics alumni. This event will mark another occasion this year that we have brought BSc and MSc alumni back to the School. We are committed to establishing a vibrant community of economics alumni and hope to begin to develop a network in the city, the UK, Europe and all over the world. The support of alumni has contributed to the continuing excellence of the department as the foremost research faculty in Europe. We hope that many of you will be able to join us once again, contribute your ideas about developing a network, and learn more about the funding priorities and aims of the department. We look forward to seeing many of you at this occasion.
This event is ticketed. Please kindly reply by June 19 to Ms Emma Taverner.
E-mail: e.taverner@lse.ac.uk; Telephone: + 44 (0)20 7955 7418; Fax: +44 (0)20 7831 1840
^
Centre for Economic Performance Public Lecture: "Education and the Economy"
Date: Monday 30 June 2003
Time: 6pm
Speaker: Professor Alan Krueger
Venue: CEP
Professor Krueger is probably the world's leading expert on the economics of education. He will survey some of the key issues, including human capital and growth, human capital accounts, vouchers, and computerized education.
For further information regarding events from the CEP, please refer to the centre's pages. Please visit the LSE Public Events pages for more information on the lecture.
^
May 2003
Centre for Economic Performance Public Lecture: "Deflation: Causes, Prevention and Cure"
Date: Monday 19 May 2003
Time: 6pm
Speaker: Professor Willem Buiter
Venue: CEP
After an absence of almost half a century, the spectre of deflation is once again haunting the corridors of central banks and finance ministries in the industrial world. Deflation can be prevented and, if it has taken hold, can be overcome, using conventional instruments of monetary and fiscal policy. Unconventional monetary and fiscal measures are also available.
For further information regarding events from the CEP, please refer to the centre's pages. Please visit the LSE Public Events pages for more information on the lecture.
^
April 2003
Centre for Economic Performance Public Lecture: "The Truth about Markets - Limits"
Date: Monday 30 April 2003
Time: 6pm
Speaker: Professor John Kay
Venue: CEP
This is one of 3 lectures to celebrate the publication of "The Truth About Markets - their Genius, Limits and Follies" by Professor John Kay.
Download the poster for the lecture. For further information regarding events from the CEP, please refer to the centre's pages. Please visit the LSE Public Events pages for more information on the lecture.
^
MSc Alumni Event: Current Monetary Policy Issues
On behalf of the Economics Department, Professor Richard Jackman, Convenor, and Dr Linda Y. Yueh, MSc Tutor, request the pleasure of your company at a lecture and reception for MSc alumni on Wednesday, 30 April 2003.
Date: Wednesday 30 April 2003
Time: 5.30pm
Speaker: Professor Steve Nickell, School Professor of Economics, LSE and Member, Monetary Policy Committee, Bank of England
Venue: Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
A reception will follow at the Atrium, Old Building.
The Economics Department offers Masters degrees in Economics, Econometrics and Mathematical Economics, Global Market Economics, and Public Financial Policy. There are also a number of joint degree programmes which combine Economics with Economic History, Philosophy or Finance. Our Masters programmes emphasise knowledge of advanced analytical techniques and the ability to apply them in new contexts. Former students are employed as professional economists in the private, public, and international sectors. Many also decide to continue their studies by progressing to a research degree. The constitution of the student body continues to reflect the great diversity of the School. Over half of our graduate students are from outside of the EU. In addition to the resources available in the Department, the students have the benefit of the new library and research laboratory designed by Sir Norman Foster and a new Atrium and Student Centre, which in great part have been made possible by the generous support of alumni. This support has played a large role in the Department's continuing rank as the top research faculty in Europe.
For further information concerning the Department, please visit our website. If you are interested in becoming more involved with the Department's postgraduate programmes or have ideas concerning alumni activities, please feel free to contact Dr Linda Yueh on 020 7955 6488. Her contact details may be found at her LSE webpage.
We welcome this opportunity to welcome our MSc alumni back to the School and look forward to seeing you at this event. The lecture and reception are arranged exclusively for current and former Economics Department MSc students. We anticipate that you will enjoy meeting our current students and members of staff. We are committed to helping alumni and the School stay in touch with each other in ways that are mutually beneficial and lasting.
^
Centre for Economic Performance Public Lecture: "Should Britain join the Euro?"
Date: Monday 28 April 2003
Time: 6pm
Speakers: Roger Bootle, Richard Layard, Patrick Minford, and Adair Turner
Venue: CEP
A public debate between two advocates of British entry (Layard and Turner) and two opponents (Minford and Bootle) and will include plenty of time for questions from the floor.
For further information regarding events from the CEP, please refer to the centre's pages. Please visit the LSE Public Events pages for more information on the lecture.
^
LSE academics to speak at the Royal Economic Society Annual Conference
Ten academics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) will be presenting papers on a wide range of issues at the Royal Economic Society Annual Conference from Monday 7 to Wednesday 9 April.
The papers will cover a range of pertinent subjects for today's government and business economists, from employment and pay to trade union membership, the gender pay gap, and economic growth and political freedom.
Academics from the Centre for Economic Performance and the Centre for the Economics of Education at LSE who are presenting papers are:
Dr Arnaud Chevalier: Motivation, Expectations and the Gender Pay Gap for UK Graduates
Gilles Duranton and Henry Overman: Testing for Localisation using Micro-geographic Data
Jo Blanden and Stephen Machin: Cross-generation Correlations of Union Statues for Young People in Britain
Arnauld Chevalier, Peter Dolton and Steven McIntoch: Recruiting and Retaining Teachers in the UK: an analysis of graduate occupation choice from the 1960s to the 1990s
Fernando Galindo-Rueda: Employer Learning and School-related Statistical Discrimination in Britain
Stephen Machin and Joan Wilson: The Economic Effects of Minimum Wages in a Low Wage Labour Market: care homes in the UK
Robert MacCulloch and Silvia Pezzini: The Role of Freedom, Growth and Religion in the Taste for Revolution
For further information please visit the LSE News and Media pages.
^
March 2003
Lionel Robbins Memorial Lectures:
"Happiness: has social science a clue?"
The 2003 Lionel Robbins Memorial Lectures will be presented by Professor Richard Layard, Co-director, Centre for Economic Performance.
The lectures will take place on 3rd, 4th & 5th March and are entitled: 'Happiness: has social science a clue?'
Monday 3 March: What is happiness and are we getting happier?
Tuesday 4 March: What causes happiness? Rethinking Public Economics
Wednesday 5 March: How can we make a happier society?
Each lecture will take place at 6.00pm in the Old Theatre. These lectures are free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first serve basis.
For further information, please visit the LSE News and Media pages.
^
February 2003
John Nash, A Beautiful Mind and Game Theory
Following the outstanding Public Lecture by Ariel Rubinstein on Tuesday 4 February, a short article taken from it was published in The Independent's 'Podium' column on February 6th. This piece is reproduced below, with the permission of Professor Rubinstein and The Independent.
From a speech by the Professor of Economics at Tel Aviv University, given at the London School of Economics:
"In his 27-page dissertation, John Nash formulated the concept that in a strategic situation, each player makes an optimal choice, given the other players' choices - later called the Nash equilibrium. Soon after, the 21-year-old genius mathematician was struck by a long and severe mental illness that prevented him appreciating the enormous impact of his work.
Many economists and other scientists feel that the Nash equilibrium is a way of predicting the outcome of almost any strategic interaction. In my opinion, the greatness of Nash's equilibrium is not that it precisely describes a law of human behavior, but rather that it describes in a formal way a type of consideration that we use. It may or may not approximate reality, but it certainly describes a possible way in which individuals sometimes look at reality. The best word to describe Nash's work is not "useful" but "beautiful".
Why are we so fascinated by the story of Nash? We are amazed by someone who proves statements that we are unable to fathom and precisely formulate what others thought about only in rough terms.
We are frightened by what is foreign and different, but at the same time we are attracted to these same things. This combination of "crazy" and "genius" is an invitation for a meeting with other worlds. We are looking into the story of Nash and feel that, like astronomers who look to the edge of the universe, we are looking toward the edge of our mind.
Perhaps John Nash's great achievement is something that he did not mean to achieve. His story brings us to be more aware of the battles of our own minds, where we struggle to treat someone suffering from mental illness as someone like all of us."
^
LSE/CEP Queen's Prize Lectures
A series of lectures is to be given throughout 2003 on "Challenges for Europe" to celebrate the award of the Queen's Prize for Higher Education to LSE for CEP's work on unemployment and inequality.
Adair Turner, Vice-Chairman, Merrill Lynch Holdings Ltd and Visiting Professor, LSE will present the first lecture, entitled 'What's wrong with Europe's Economy?' on February 5th at 6.00pm in the Old Theatre.
'What's wrong with Europe's Economy?'
Many people believe Europe is an economic laggard versus the US, and that wide-ranging "structural reform" is essential to stimulate growth. But this analysis misleads us. It fails to distinguish social choice from economic efficiency, or to focus on the few specific areas where difficult structural reform is needed - in labour markets and pension systems. And it underplays the importance of macro factors, such as the objectives of the European Central Bank. A better understanding of the problem is required for better definition of policy priorities.
This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first serve basis.
The second lecture to be given by Professor Peter Kenen, Princeton University, is entitled 'Reassessing the Euro: expectations and achievements' and will take place on February 18th at 6.00pm in the New Theatre.
'Reassessing the Euro: expectations and achievements'
Four issues were debated during the run-up to EMU: Do the EU countries constitute an optimum currency area? Should monetary union be accompanied by a federal fiscal union? Will monetary union promote trade and financial integration? Will the euro challenge the dollar as the main international currency. We will revisit these issues in the light of actual experience and more recent research.
^
A tribute to W.M. (Terence) Gorman (1923-2003), Professor of Economics at LSE from 1967-79
Terence Gorman was one of the most distinguished applied economists of the twentieth century. Crucially, he was one of the architects of modern consumer theory. His ideas are so ingrained in modern economics that we use them daily with almost no acknowledgement. He was also a great character and all those who knew him well can tell at least one amusing story involving Terence. To confirm this, I asked around the economics department at LSE among the group of faculty who knew him while he was here. Jim Thomas recalled that on "one occasion when he was invited to give a Special University Lecture at LSE. He turned up and was very apologetic about the fact that he had thought he was to give a University Lecture to Specialists. As I recall, Dick Lipsey was in the chair and there was a lapel mike attached to Terence with a trailing cord. As Terence wandered around the stage staring into space as he lectured, Dick was constantly leaning out of his chair to control the cord and prevent Terence tripping up and falling off the stage."
Terence Gorman was at the LSE an important time in the history of the economics department and was among the group that guaranteed that LSE remained in the mainstream of world economics. When I knew Terence at Oxford, he recalled his LSE days (and his days at Birmingham) with great affection.
Terence also left his imprint on the structure of the BSc(Econ) Special Subject: Econometrics and Mathematical Economics. He was very much opposed to having too narrow a definition of 'econometrics' in the degree. For this reason the compulsory 3rd Year Projects were called 'Quantitative Economics Projects' and not 'Econometrics Projects'. This meant we were able to accept a wide variety of topics, as almost anything was OK as long as there was some quantitative analysis of actual data. This was not without trials and Jim Thomas remembers that Terence had some problems in persuading the External Examiner to agree that a Project written by an excellent, but perverse student who chose to produce a Marxist critique of neo-Classical economics without a single number in it was acceptable. The other feature was a 3rd Year course called 'Topics in Quantitative Economics' made up of four 10 lecture components. In addition to 10 on cross-section Microeconometrics and 10 on time series Macroeconometrics, there were 10 on cost-benefit analysis and 10 on Income Distribution, Inequality, etc. This breadth of vision remains a feature of the BSc(Econ) today.
Terence is probably best known for his work on separability and aggregation in consumer theory. He was the first to derive rigorously the (restrictive) conditions for the existence of a representative consumer. He also made precise the conditions under which consumer budgeting could be solved in "two stages" - first deciding how much to spend on broad aggregates such as food or clothing, and then dividing the budget between different alternatives within the groups. This work gave rise to an extremely important class of preferences -- the Gorman polar form -- which is enormously important in consumer theory and applications. Some related ideas are important in understanding factor demands in the theory of the firm and he also worked out the conditions for treating inputs as aggregates.
In a path-breaking contribution, Terence introduced the idea of characteristics - that goods are consumed to obtain some underlying properties that could be obtained in a variety of ways. The idea was also introduced by Kelvin Lancaster with Terence's contribution becoming apparent only later. The fact that his paper was entitled "A possible procedure for analyzing quality differentials in the egg market" may explain this. However, this was also typical of Terence. While he produced contributions of great generality which often required the use of sophisticated mathematics, the motivation was most often explained in the form of some very concrete experience. Indeed, he would often introduce anecdotes from his childhood in Ireland to motivate almost any economic problem. This could throw even the most polished north-American seminar presenter off course.
It is something of a myth that Terence did not publish extensively. However, many of his contributions were not in the most accessible places. Recently Chuck Blackorby and Tony Shorrocks did the economics profession a great service in bringing Terence's collected works into two volumes published by Oxford University Press.
Those who met Terence for the first time, especially as students, were first bemused and ultimately in awe of him. They were also entertained by many of his idiosyncrasies, not least his tendency to rank the abilities of co-authors. Moreover, no figure in the profession, however established, was spared! Terence was a champion of applied economics and was frequently frustrated at what he saw as a tendency towards pure theory among graduate students.
On a personal note, I was privileged to have been one of Terence's DPhil students at Oxford. I learned to read his distinctive hand writing and even, by the end, to understand some of what he said to me. Terence also had one of the most expressive brows I have ever known and the depth of furrows sometimes sent out messages that were much clearer than what came out of his mouth. I spent hours with Terence only a few of them discussing economics. He much preferred to discuss politics or history. He would often remark how he was advantaged in having a good mathematical training, not because it made him a better economist, but because it left him with more time for reading history.
Terence left a lasting impression on everyone who met him. He also inspired great affection. The greatest error that anyone could make was to underestimate him either in person or in print. The written contributions are tough to read, not least because of their sophistication. However, I quickly learned that they merited repeated readings. Talking to him was similar - figuring out exactly what he was saying was never easy, but persistence was unfailingly rewarding.
Tim Besley
^
Department of Economics Public Lecture:
"John Nash, A Beautiful Mind and Game Theory"
Date: 4th February 2003
Time: 6:00pm
Venue: Old Theatre
Speaker: Professor Ariel Rubinstein, Professor of Economics at Tel Aviv University and Princeton University
Chair: Professor Richard Jackman
The lecture will include critical comments on the meaning of Game Theory as well as personal reflections on Game Theory, the story of John Nash, and the movie A Beautiful Mind.
In preparation for the lecture, it would be important that you spend a few minutes responding to some "problems" presented at this websitegametheory.tau.ac.il/lse/ (from January 2003). Your answers will remain confidential and only statistics on the results will be presented in the lecture.
This event is free and open to all. No ticket is required. For more information contact Conferences and Events on 020 7955 6043, email events@lse.ac.uk, or visit the Conferences and Events web site.
^
January 2003
BSc Economics Centenary Lecture
The academic year 2002/3 sees the 100th intake of students onto the BSc in Economics. The event will be marked with a special lecture by Charles Bean, Chief Economist at the Bank of England and an LSE professor. Professor Bean will talk about 'Economists and the Real World'.
There will be a reception after the lecture, with a display of material illustrating aspects of the School, the degree, its students and alumni over the past century.
Date: 29th January 2003
Time: 6:00pm
Venue: Old Theatre
Speaker: Professor Charles Bean
Chair: Professor Anthony Giddens
This event is free and open to all but a ticket is required.
For details on how to obtain your ticket please contact Conferences and Events on 020 7955 6043, email events@lse.ac.uk , or visit the Conferences and Events website.
A copy of the lecture is available, in pdf format, from the Bank of England's website.
^
November 2002
FMG Public Lecture by Professor Axel Boersch Supan
On 25th November 2002, Professor Axel Boersch Supan will present "Aging and International Capital Markets" at the second Financial Markets Group Public Lecture. This lecture is run in conjunction with the FMG/UBS Pensions Research Programme.
For more details please download the invitation.
The lecture is open to all and will start at 5.30pm in the Hong Kong Theatre.
Please visit the Financial Markets Group's pages to register for up to date conference and seminar listings including news on latest FMG publications.
^
STICERD Public Lecture by Mervyn King
Date: 19 November 2002
Time: 6.30pm
Venue: Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Mervyn King
Title: "The Inflation Target Ten Years On"
Chair: Professor Timothy Besley
Ten years ago the then Governor of the Bank of England delivered the inaugural LSE - Bank of England Lecture which argued the case for price stability. On Tuesday 19th November 2002, Mervyn King will give a STICERD public lecture entitled 'The Inflation Target Ten Years On' which will examine whether ten years of inflation targeting have delivered the promised benefits, and will discuss the challenges that lie ahead.
Further information and tickets (available from 28th October) can be obtained from the Conferences and Events Office.
^
October 2002
European Doctoral Programme in Quantitative Economics Annual Jamboree
This year's Jamboree will take place at Dulwich College, Dulwich Common, London, SE2, from 31 October to 2 November 2002. The Programme will commence on the afternoon of Friday 1 November and run to the evening of Saturday 2 November.
It will comprise of Faculty Presentations from John Sutton (LSE) and Maitreesh Ghatak (LSE), student presentations and job market talks. The weekend will end with dinner at a local restaurant.
^
LSE/CEP Public Lecture: "Economic Development under Globalisation"
Date: Tuesday 15 October 2002
Time: 1.00pm
Venue: Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
Speaker: Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University
Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, will be giving a public lecture on Economic Development under Globalisation.
The event is open to all and will take place at the Hong Kong Theatre from 1pm. Professor Richard Jackman will chair.
^
Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta awarded the 2002 Volvo Environment Prize
Many congratulations to Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta on receiving the 2002 Volvo Environment Prize. The award is jointly accredited to Prof. Dasgupta and Professor Karl-Göran Mäler (Stockholm School of Economics) for their significant and pioneering contributions to environmental and resource economics.
Established in 1989, the Volvo Environment Prize acknowledges and supports environmental research and developments across scientific, socio-economic and technological boundaries. Knowledge and understanding of these fundamental issues is key to global sustainable development and this prestigious prize serves as a worldwide recognition of such advanced research.
Professor Dasgupta, who will be teaching the graduate course Ec427 Economics of Industry this Michaelmas Term, was cited by the prize committee for his 'his decisive work on the economics of exhaustible resources, his insights on their role in providing essential ecological services, and his pioneering efforts to better understand the processes of underdevelopment and poverty and their connections to the environment.'
Further information on the 2002 Volvo Environment Prize.
Detailed information on Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta's research.
^
September 2002
Welcome to Dr Linda Yueh, Departmental MSc Tutor in Economics
Dr Linda Yueh has been appointed to the new position of Departmental MSc Tutor in Economics. Her role is to advise and assist students on all aspects of the programme, including study skills and career choice, to raise the external profile of the programme and to co-ordinate activities such as the staff/student liaison committee and the MSc Econ society. The academic programme itself and examinations remain the responsibility of the Programme Director, Professor Tony Venables.
Dr Yueh studied economics and public policy at Yale and at Harvard, and law at New York University, before taking her DPhil at Oxford where she was also a Research Officer and College Lecturer in Economics. She has worked as an economic analyst at the White House, and in the private sector in New York, Beijing and Hong Kong.
Dr Yueh's appointment is part-time (2.5 days a week), and her office is S667 (extn 6488).
^
A welcome note from the Convener
A very warm welcome back to LSE at the start of the new academic year. This is in fact a special year for economics at LSE as our main degree programme, the BSc (Econ.), was launched 100 years ago in October 1902. Though the teaching programme has gone through various transformations since that time, the title of the degree has not changed. We will be marking this Centenary with a ceremony later in the year.
In the meantime, we have as usual a full programme of courses and seminars throughout the year and I am very pleased to welcome in particular our new teachers and all our new students who are joining us this autumn. There will be a variety of lectures and events which will be posted on the webpage and elsewhere. I look forward to seeing many of you during the course of the year and wish everyone a productive and enjoyable year
Professor Richard Jackman
^
e-Tutor of the Year Competition
Margaret Bray and Jonathan Leape of the LSE Economics Department were runners up in the e-Tutor of the Year competition, with the website for Ec201, Microeconomic Principles I. The nationwide competition, now in its second year, is run by the Learning and Teaching Support Network and the Times Higher Educational Supplement. It looks for examples of innovative and effective use of the web to support student learning.
The key feature of the Ec201 website is the weekly online multiple choice quizzes. Students input the answers online, with a deadline the day before their class meets. Many quizzes contain hyperlinks to worked examples. The examples generalise and add detail to the lectures.
Students' results are sorted to a database organized class by class. The Centre for Learning Technology developed spreadsheets allowing each teacher to go to class with a printout for that class showing what answer each student gave to each question, clearly highlighting errors. This enables the class teachers to focus on the issues that challenge students.
Margaret said "We found the discussion board particularly useful for keeping touch with the 400 students on the course. Student questions are very important to us as feedback on what is and is not getting across. Often the answers are of interest to many students. The discussion board makes them accessible." A student commented, "The discussion forum was extremely useful and led to much more interaction between the lecturers and students than any other subject I have taken."
Building the website was a team effort. Jonathan told us "We are very grateful to the Centre for Learning Technology and also to Alice Williams of the Economics Department- not only for all the time and expertise they devoted to the project, but also for their patience as we worked our way to an effective model. We were also lucky to have two very able PhD students, Marc Moller and Marta Coelho, who worked with us throughout the project. Without the full support of Liz Barnett of the Teaching and Learning Development Office and of Richard Jackman convenor of the Economics Department, it is hard to imagine the project ever getting off the ground."
^
Welcome to all new academic members of the Department of Economics
Six new academic staff join the Department for the 2002/3 session:
Professor Raquel Fernandez
Professor Raquel Fernandez, previously of New York University, joins the department in January 2003. Her fields of interest include international economics, advanced macroeconomics and income distribution, and has published extensively in these areas, in particular analysing the distributional impact of education finance. Professor Fernandez will be teaching on the MPhil Topics course.
Dr Maitreesh Ghatak
Dr Maitreesh Ghatak has been appointed Reader in Economics. He comes from the University of Chicago and his fields are Development Economics and Microeconomics. He will be teaching Development and Growth, Microeconomic Principles and Advanced Economics Analysis.
Dr Martin Pesendorfer
Dr Martin Pesendorfer has been appointed to the Leverhulme Readership in Economics. He is from Yale and his field is Industrial Organisation. He will be teaching the MSc Micro I course.
Dr Peter Davis
Dr Peter Davis has been appointed to the Leverhulme Lectureship in Economics. He has been visiting STICERD this year, formerly at Yale, and his field is Industrial Organisation. He will be teaching the Economics of Industry for both MSc and undergraduate students.
Dr Mireia Jofre-Bonet
Dr Mireia Jofre-Bonet has been appointed part-time Lecturer in Economics. She has a joint appointment with LSE Health. She is also from Yale and her field is Health Economics. She will be teaching Mathematics for Economists.
Dr Javier Ortega
Dr Javier Ortega, Lecturer at Toulouse, will be a Temporary Lecturer in Economics for the year, and will teach the second term of undergraduate Macroprinciples.
TUTORIAL FELLOWS
The Department also welcomes a number of new Tutorial Fellows, who will be contributing to graduate class teaching:
Giorgia Albertin
M Chemin
C Fiorio
R Veneziani
B Veronese
D Petropoulou
MW Elsby
VISITORS
A number of distinguished visitors will also be joining us in 2002/3:
Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta
Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, Professor of Economics at Cambridge, will be visiting in the Michaelmas Term, and will be teaching the MSc course in Economics of Industry. Professor Dasgupta has been President of the Royal Economic Society, and was knighted in the Birthday Honours this summer.
Professor Rick van der Ploeg
Professor Rick van der Ploeg, Professor at Amsterdam and Minister of Culture in the last Dutch government, will also be visiting in the Michaelmas Term and will be teaching MSc Macro I.
ProfessorsTorsten Persson (Institute for International Economic Studies) and Oliver Hart (Harvard University) will be returning to the Department as LSE Visiting Centennial Professors.
Professors Marcus Miller (University of Warwick), Alan Winters (University of Sussex) and Peter Hall (Australian National University) will be visiting the department to teach on a variety of postgraduate courses.
^
News Archive
Click on the News Archive to read the news of previous years.
^